I’ll have a read through CoP again. I have been talking from memory up to this point. But yes, the prose section = dialogue, and the poetry section = .. poetry. We should also keep in mind, as you probably have, that Boethius is writing the parts for the dreamer and for Lady Philosophy.

In any case, I’ll get back to this later when I get the chance.

I do think the poetry contributes something positive to the overall task of the consolation, so it is a matter of identifying how it does this–and I happen to think the poetry does this by somehow supporting the prose sections (for the good of the dreamer), rather than somehow putting into question what the prose sections are trying to do.

The issue of the ’stable good’ versus the ‘transitory good’ obviously is central to the Consolation–as you rightly point out. It is a further question to ask whether the stable good can in fact function as a ‘good for me’. And in fact, I think it should–precisely b/c the treatise wouldn’t be a consolation for the dreamer, if learning what the stable good is could not in some way console the dreamer. Anselm discusses this a bit in On the Fall of the Devil where he distinguishes btwn. the affection for the good in itself, and the affection for the good for oneself– and yet later Scotus takes up this distinction to claim that love for the good in itself is so good, that loving this good is a good for oneself.

This is all well and good until we remember that Philosophy is claiming to lead Boethius to “the good”, and thus to true happiness. If by ‘for oneself’ you mean a particular, ie. unique, happiness, then again you are not taking any kind of straightforward reading of the Consolation. For, the good, and thus true happiness are not unique or particular by any stretch of the means. If the good was particular and not universal, then it would not be the good.

another option: If by ‘for oneself’ you instead mean that Boethius is just taking some time out from the rigor of the prose sections, then it occurs to me that you have posited a kind of art for arts sake, or maybe art for therapy sake, both of which again would be complete foreign to either the straightforward reading or my reading of the consolation. 1. art for arts sake is the most modern notion that I can think of. You’re familiar with my masters thesis, so I won’t rehash it here. But suffice it to say, one has literally no support for positing art for arts sake in the ancient world. If on the other hand you mean that poetry is providing a kind of therapy for Boethius, you again need to explain why Boethius is using poetry when Philosophy so severely chastens him for it on Page 1! If he is ignoring her chastening by using poetry throughout the ENTIRE Consolation, they you seem to be positing something similar my thesis, that poetry provides a way for Beothius to subtly subvert the aims of Philosophy. However, in this case it’s no rest stop that he’s taking. Rather, he aiming for something greater than philosophy. An aside, I think he’s employing an incarnational model of thought by fusing poetry and theological/philosophical reflection.

lastly, it seems to me that you deplete the Consolation’s ingenuity by claiming that the poems are existential rest stops - I’m not even sure I get what that means. But if it’s the case that they’re not central, or part of the center, of the dialogue between Philosophy and Boethius, if they’re just ancillary bits that the author Boethius tacked on, then we’re left with another one of the form divorced from content statements. But I’m arguing that these kind of statements can handle developments after the Consolation like Canterbury Tales and Divine Comedy, which are doing a fair amount of theology in their own right precisely through their form.

Lastly, your willingness to divorce the poetry from the Consolation, in favor of what you call a more straightforward reading, is actually the least straightforward reading you could take. After all, Book 1 opens with Philosophy chastising Boethius for using Ovidean elegy, which he abondons altogether, except for a rather satirical Ovidean elegy in Book III, where when read straightforwardly Boethius recounts the Orpheus myth in order to show that poetry is not helpful for finding deeper (what I take you to mean by Existential) meaning in suffering.

With all due respect, moves like yours, that divorce form from content, are troubling because they show little respect for the genre that the author intentionally chooses in order to convey the content. In words of a friend who is a Lit prof at U Delaware, you can’t separate form from content like it’s just the wrapping paper on a gift. The gift, rather, is the form and the content in an inseparable union. Let’s try to find a way that we can read the Consolation that respects both Boethius’ philosophical aims as well as the format in which he choose to enshroud those aims.